Man Sentenced For Kidnapping Prostitute

HARTFORD — A man accused of raping a prostitute more than four years ago in Farmington was sentenced on Friday to five years in prison after pleading guilty to a reduced charge of second-degree kidnapping.

The full sentence for Jermaine Ross, 36, of Bloomfield is 10 years in prison, suspended after five, followed by five years of probation. He will be out in 8-10 months because the time he spent in jail waiting for the case to conclude is counted toward his sentence, said his standby counsel Aaron J. Romano.

He pleaded guilty in Superior Court under the Alford doctrine shortly before his sentencing. With the Alford doctrine, defendants don't admit guilt, but agree there is enough evidence to be convicted at trial.

Ross had already been taken to trial. He represented himself during a 2011 trial that ended with a hung jury.

There was DNA evidence, prosecutor Thomas Garcia told Judge Joan Alexander, and the jury was 5-1 in favor of convicting him.

"There was just one person who couldn't get past the fact that she was a prostitute," he said.

Ross picked up the woman on Webster Street in Hartford early on the morning of Nov. 22, 2009 and drove her out of the city, Garcia said.

"She changed her mind and asked to be brought back to Hartford," Garcia said. "He wouldn't."

"Then, the other events unfolded," he said.

According to police and testimony, the woman had told Ross that she did her business at a local hotel, but Ross said there was a less-expensive hotel he wanted to use. He stopped behind a Route 6 business in Farmington and raped her while holding what he said was a gun to her temple, the woman testified.

Ross, who was kicked out of court once for a heated exchange with the judge, continued to assert his innocence Friday, even after Alexander accepted his guilty plea on the kidnapping charge.

"I'm innocent," he told her. "I'd like to have the DNA re-tested. ... I am only pleading today to get on with my life."